Arms. v. State

2015 Ark. 364, 471 S.W.3d 637, 2015 Ark. LEXIS 572
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedOctober 8, 2015
DocketCR-15-124
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 2015 Ark. 364 (Arms. v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Arms. v. State, 2015 Ark. 364, 471 S.W.3d 637, 2015 Ark. LEXIS 572 (Ark. 2015).

Opinions

JOSEPHINE LINKER HART, Justice

liA Polk County jury convicted Melissa McCann Arms of the. introduction of a controlled substance into the body of another person. She was sentenced to twenty years in the Arkansas Department of Correction. On appeal, Arms argues that the circuit court erred in (1) not granting her directed-verdict motion; (2) not granting her motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction when there was no evidence that she consumed or introduced, ingested or inhaled any controlled substance in the body of another while in Polk County; and (3) not granting her motion to dismiss based upon the injection being in the defendant and not her unborn child.

This case was originally filed in the court of appeals, which affirmed Arms’s conviction. Arms v. State, 2015 Ark. App. 27, 453 S.W.3d 709. We granted Arms’s petition for review. When we grant a petition to review a decision of the court of appeals, we treat the matter as if the appeal had been originally filed in this court. .Pickle v. State, 2015 Ark. 286, 466 S.W.3d 410;

|2On August 27, 2013, Arms was charged by information in Polk County with introducing two controlled substances, codeine and methamphetamine, into the body of her baby, J.A., on or about November 1, 2012. Prior to trial, Arms moved to dismiss the charges, asserting that the Polk County Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction and venue to try her case. She asserted that she resided in Sevier County and was transported by ambulance from her home in DeQueen, which' is in Sevier County, to Mena Regional Medical Center in Polk County. Her child was born in Mena. ■ She alleged that she had taken no drugs in Polk County prior to the birth of her child.

Arms subsequently filed a second motion to dismiss, asserting that she was charged under a statute that did not mention unborn children. She argued that the controlled substance was introduced only into her body and that there was no evidence of the introduction of the controlled substance into the infant after it had been born. The circuit court dénied both motions. It found that any “introduction” of substances would have continued during the period Arms was in the hospital. Further, while the circuit court conceded that the statute did not mention an unborn child, it found that the “introduction,” if it occurred, would have continued for a time after the birth of the child. Finally, the circuit court ruled that, for the purposes of this statute, a human body would include a fetus. The State nol-prossed the count involving codeine, and Arms proceeded to trial on the charge of introducing methamphetamine into the body of her child.

Amber Williams, a registered nurse employed by Mena Regional Health System (Mena Regional), testified that on November 1, 2012, Arms arrived at Mena Regional by | ^ambulance. Arms showed signs of being in labor, so Williams admitted Arms to the hospital. Williams testified that the emergency-medical personnel told her that appellant was acting very erratic and out of control, and she recalled seeing Arms “thrashing in the bed,” and acting “very out of control.” As a routine part of the initial assessment, Williams asked and Arms denied having taken any drugs. Williams stated that she had reason to doubt Arms’s denial and, because of Arms’s unusual behavior, she contacted the police.

Stacie Floyd, another registered nurse at Mena Regional, testified that she came into contact with Arms soon after she was admitted to the hospital. Floyd stated that Arms was acting atypically for someone in the early stages of labor. It was hard for the staff to keep Arms in bed and on the monitor. A toxicology screen was ordered for Arms, and, according to Floyd, she was present when Arms was confronted with the results of the baby’s drug test. Arms denied taking drugs, but stated that she was at a party and something might have been put in her food.

Registered nurse Amber Cobb testified that she was working at Mena Regional when Arms gave birth. According to Cobb, she performed the delivery. She recalled that Arms’s urine tested positive for methamphetamine. When she told Arms the results, Arms became very angry and upset. Nonetheless, Arms denied using any illegal substances. Arms was crying .hysterically, almost to the point of hyperventilating. She- opined that Arms’s reaction caused the baby’s fetal heart rate to drop to an abnormally low level. When the child was born, Cobb recalled that he did not cry, even after being stimulated. He was flaccid and limp and had a facial droop on one side of his face. Cobb further testified that when a baby is ^delivered, there is a period of time when the umbilical cord is attached and the baby is outside the womb. The cord is cut within a few seconds to a few minutes.

Elena Cannon, investigator for the Polk County Prosecuting Attorney’s office, testified that she served a search warrant on Arms to take blood and urine samples while Arms was in labor. The warrant also authorized samples to be taken from the child. The samples were taken to the Arkansas State Crime Lab (Crime Lab) in Little Rock.

Leanne Hazard, a forensic toxicologist for the Crime Lab, testified that she performed tests on the blood drawn from Arms’s baby. The samples tested positive for codeine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, norfentanyl, and lidocaine. Don Riddle, also a forensic toxicologist with the Crime Lab, testified that he tested Arms’s blood and urine and the baby’s urine. He stated that Arms’s samples tested positive for methamphetamine. He also found evidence of amphetamine in the baby’s urine.

Registered nurse Patina Fair testified that she cared for Arms’s child while he was in the nursery. She stated that the child exhibited the signs associated with withdrawal from a controlled substance. According to Fair, she spoke with Arms right before she took the child to the nursery, and Arms admitted to her that she “did this” to the child. Fair told Arms that the baby was suffering withdrawal from methamphetamine use.

Michael May, the Senior Investigator for the 18th West Judicial District Drug Task Force, testified that he was asked by Elena Cannon to assist in the investigation. Together, they interviewed Arms at the hospital after the delivery. Arms consented to the interview and admitted that she had used methamphetamine four times while she was pregnant, including | ¿the day before she was admitted to the hospital in labor. Appellant told May that she injected methamphetamine three of the four times during her pregnancy, but aside from a few “puffs on a bowl” on Halloween, her intravenous use of methamphetamine was a month, to a month and a half earlier.

At the close of the State’s case, Arms moved for a directed verdict. She stated,

The State has not proven that the Defendant, did cause to be ingested, inhaled or otherwise introduced into the human body of another person a controlled substance, specifically methamphetamine. We still have the same elements here of the human body and the ingested or ingested or inhaled or otherwise introduced.

The State countered that Arms admitted she had ingested methamphetamine while pregnant, and the drug was transmitted through the umbilical cord to the child. The circuit court denied Arms’s directed-verdict motion. Arms also renewed her motions to dismiss, which were likewise denied. Arms was convicted as charged.

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Bluebook (online)
2015 Ark. 364, 471 S.W.3d 637, 2015 Ark. LEXIS 572, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/arms-v-state-ark-2015.